Hollywood Propaganda

Writing in his 1992 book, Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment, Michael Parenti notes:


 * "Today, very little of our make-believe is drawn from children's games, storytelling, folktales, and fables, very little from dramas and dreams of our own making. Instead we have the multibillion-dollar industries of Hollywood and television to fill our minds with prefabricated images and themes." (p.1)

Hollywood Actors/Activists
Dan Brockington writes in 2008 that:


 * "Support for environmental causes is prominent, too, among some of the world’s better-known entertainment celebrities, often closely linked to particular NGOs. ... There are also Hollywood actors, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, who support groups including the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Diane Fossey Foundation, and Robert Redford, who also supports the work of the NRDC as does Pierce Brosnan (also on the advisory board of the Sea Shepherds). Harrison Ford is Vice-President of Conservation International and has received numerous awards for his conservation work. Actress Stefanie Powers supports the William Holden Foundation. Angelina Jolie sponsors her own wildlife project in Cambodia and initiatives in Namibia. The musician Sting set up the Rainforest Foundation for which musicians including James Taylor, Sheryl Crow and Billy Joel perform in annual concerts. Other charities, including TNC, Wild Aid, the Murry Foundation and many more, devote special space on their website to list the celebrities who support them or to display special messages from them."


 * Angelina Jolie
 * Barbara Streisand
 * Ben Affleck
 * Bill Travers
 * Bo Derek
 * Brad Pitt
 * Brigitte Bardot
 * Christopher Reeve
 * Denzel Washington
 * Don Cheadle
 * Edward Asner
 * Ed Begley, Jr.
 * Elaine Hendrix
 * George Clooney
 * Mel Gibson
 * Gwyneth Paltrow
 * Harrison Ford
 * Harry Belafonte
 * Jane Fonda
 * Jennifer Siebel
 * Jody Williams
 * Joaquin Phoenix
 * Kevin Bacon
 * Leonardo DiCaprio
 * Lew Wasserman
 * Lindsay Wagner
 * Madonna
 * Mariana Tosca
 * Martin Sheen
 * Meryl Streep
 * Mia Farrow
 * Michael Douglas
 * Pierce Brosnan
 * Richard Dreyfuss
 * Richard Gere
 * Robert Redford
 * Ronald Silver
 * Sean Penn
 * Sharon Stone
 * Sigourney Weaver
 * Sir Peter Ustinov
 * Stefanie Powers
 * Susan Sarandon
 * Sylvester Stallone
 * Tom Hanks
 * Tim Robbins
 * Uma Thurman
 * Warren Beatty
 * Whoopi Goldberg
 * Will Smith

Directors/Producers

 * George Lucas
 * Martin Scorsese
 * Steven Spielberg
 * Francis Ford Coppola
 * Oliver Stone
 * Jerry Weintraub
 * Ben Affleck‎

Hollywood and the Military/CIA

 * Paula Bernstein, "Hardest-working Actor of the Season: the C.I.A.", New York Times, September 2, 2001.
 * Joanne Laurier, "US cable channel whitewashes the CIA", World Socialist Web, December 12, 2001.
 * Lawrence H. Suid, Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film (Kentucky UP, 2002).
 * Mile Klindo and Richard Phillips, "Military interference in American film production", World Socialist Web, March 14, 2005.
 * David L. Robb, Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon shapes and censors the movies (Prometheus Books, 2004).
 * Seiji Yamada, "Transformers, Militarism in Disguise", Znet, August 1, 2007.
 * Nick Turse, "The Golden Age of the Military-Entertainment Complex: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Pentagon-Style", Tom's Dispatch, March 21, 2008.
 * Daniel J. Leab, Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007). Review
 * "Tomgram: Nick Turse, Irony Man". TomsDispatch, May 20, 2008.
 * Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, "An offer they couldn't refuse", Guardian (UK), November 14, 2008.
 * Matthew Alford, A Propaganda Model for Hollywood, Westminster Papers for Communication and Culture, Vol 6(2), 2009.

Other Critical Resources

 * Herminio Martins, "The Celebrity Syndrome," New Left Review, I/26, July-August 1964.
 * Ernst Giglio, Here’s Looking at You: Hollywood, Film, and Politics (Peter Lang, 2005).
 * J. Hoberman, The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties (The New Press, 2005).
 * Ben Dickenson, Hollywood’s New Radicalism: War, Globalisation and the Movies from Reagan to George W. Bush (I. B. Tauris, 2006).
 * Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard, The Hollywood War Machine: U.S. Militarism and Popular Culture (Paradigm, 2007).
 * Mikita Brottman, "The Beauties and the Beasts: Hollywood, Blondes and the Slaughter Industry", Counterpunch, July 19, 2010.
 * Matthew Alford, Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy (Pluto Press, August 2010).
 * Tom Pollard, Sex and Violence: The Hollywood Censorship Wars (Paradigm, 2010).

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Bob Hope Humanitarian Award
 * Fox Spotlight
 * Hugh Jackman
 * Alec Baldwin
 * Ethan Hawke
 * Nick Cage
 * Woody Harrelson
 * Steven Soderbergh
 * Mike Farrell
 * Paul Newman
 * Artists United for a Win Without War
 * John Sayles
 * Humanitas Award
 * Janeane Garofalo
 * Michael Moore
 * Jeff Skoll
 * Voices That Care
 * Lawrence Bender
 * Ari Emanuel - agent
 * Gary Sinise
 * Ryan Gosling